Chapter 8: New Hope

March 15th, 2314 – 10:00 PM – Zerawian Countryside

Another two hours later, Sonic and Tails were still wandering down the road with empty stomachs. Sonic wondered just how far they had walked. It was difficult to tell, with how much these roadways all looked the same. Outside of the cities, Zeraw seemed to be nothing but trees and grass fields, with an overcast sky constantly overhead. They couldn't even tell how much time had passed, since the sun hardly ever shined in the Land of Darkness.

"Sonic...are you all right?" Tails asked, suddenly breaking the silence.

"Not really. This leg...it's taking a lot of energy out of me just to walk on it," he said as he looked at Tails. Tails had a look of concern on his face, with his eyes wide open. Sonic let out a sigh. "Maybe if we rest a while, I'll feel better."

"Okay Sonic," Tails said. "Want me to help you off the road?"

"Nah, I'm okay."

"But what if a car comes by and runs you over?"

Sonic would have burst out into laughter if he had the strength. The best he could manage was some weak chuckles.

"It's been days since the last time we saw a car," Sonic said with a smile. "What makes you think one is just going to come out of nowhere and run me over here?"

Tails smiled back at him, apparently happy that Sonic wasn't totally devoid of laughter despite the situation.

"Sorry...I guess you're right," Tails said, sweeping the three hairs sticking out of his forehead away from his face.

"Well, if you're worried, help me into the grass then."

"Fine."

Tails helped drag Sonic off of the pavement and onto the grass beside the road. He helped Sonic to get comfortable on a soft cloverleaf patch.

"I'll wake you up later."

"Yeah...sure," Sonic said as he looked straight up at the dark, overcast sky ahead. As always, it was impossible to tell what time it was from looking at the sky, since the sky in the Land of Darkness always looked like that. "Good night, or good morning, or whatever time of day it is."

"Have a good rest," Tails said, walking out of sight.

Sonic let his eyes settle closed. For a few minutes, Sonic rested easily, but there was an annoying blinking sensation in his eyes. It was like there was a light or something flashing in them. The hedgehog wondered what it was. He ignored it for a little while, but it was getting more and more agitating by the minute. Finally, he decided to fling his eyes open and see if the flickering light still persisted in his vision. As he opened his eyes and his vision came into focus, he didn't see the light anymore in his eyes. The only thing that greeted his eyes was the road, and the trees and grass lining the road.

Then he saw it. In the trees on the right side of the road, he could see two yellow lights, blinking on and off about once every second. Sonic stared at them for a while to let his vision come into focus. He wanted to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Still, even as his vision came into crystal clear focus, the flickering yellow lights were there. That must have been what he was seeing in his eyes when he closed them. He got up on his knees, his exhaustion and yearning for sleep temporarily forgotten, as his curiosity fixated on the lights.

"Hey Tails..." Sonic murmured.

There was a stirring in the grass next to him.

Tails yawned, and then said, "What is it?"

"Look over there," Sonic said, pointing towards the lights.

Tails' eyes widened a bit.

"What is that? I hope it's not one of Robotnik's robots or something."

"There's only one way to find out."

"But aren't you still tired Sonic?"

"Yeah, but I won't be able to sleep until I know what that thing over there is. I'm heading over there right now."

Sonic slowly swayed to a stand, and grabbed his walking stick again. He limped over towards the light. Tails quickly jumped up and followed after him. The two walked through the trees, towards the blinking light. As they got closer, they saw that there was another road beyond the trees where the light had been blinking. When the last of the trees was out of the way, they at last saw what the blinking light had been.

It was a green four-door car that had pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. The engine was switched off, but the emergency blinkers were still turned on. Those were the yellow lights Sonic had seen. However, the owner was nowhere to be seen. It looked like he had abandoned his car in such a hurry that he had forgotten to switch off the lights.

"A car," Tails said. "I wonder how long it's been here."

"I dunno..." Sonic said. He turned his head this way and that, trying to take in the surroundings. Off to the right, the road curved to the right around a bend. Sonic remembered that on the last road, he saw that it had gone into a left turn too. Apparently, they were still on the same road, only after the turn. They'd cut the corner through the trees. However, as he looked over there, he saw a thin trail of oily smoke drifting up into the sky. Again, his curiosity getting the better of him, Sonic hobbled over towards the smoke to see what it was.

"Hey, where are you going?" Tails asked.

"I'm gonna go look at something," Sonic responded, not bothering to look at Tails.

As he got around the curve, he saw that the smoke was coming from a massive pileup of cars. There had to be at least ten vehicles in the mess, but there could have been more. It was hard to tell with how much the cars had been mangled and smashed to pieces. Some cars had been overturned, others had been smashed into pancakes of metal, and even a few had been sheared into two pieces. The only thing consistent among all of the cars is that they had been blackened by a fire. Some smoke was still drifting up from the remains, but the fire had already burned itself out.

"This is terrible..." Tails said. "What caused this?"

"I don't know."

Sonic gazed around, trying to look for an answer to Tails' question. He then noticed something strange. Around the wreckage, there were several craters, which seemed to have been caused by explosions. One of them had knocked over a tree, and it had smashed a pickup truck's cab.

"Do you see those?" Sonic asked, pointing his finger at the craters.

"Yeah," Tails murmured back.

"I don't think a car wreck could cause that. A lot of those things are too far away from the pileup."

"Then what did cause it?"

Rather than reply, Sonic decided to walk around, see if he could find more evidence. As he stepped around a blackened sedan, he saw something that made his heart sink even more. Splayed out across the pavement was a ravaged corpse of a female tabby cat, her clothes ripped to shreds and covered with her own blood. There was a large hole in her back. A pool of crimson stained the concrete red around her. Tails let out a gasp behind him. As the sorrow washed over Sonic's mind, he couldn't help but think that this situation felt familiar.

Kyle's burned corpse was lying on the pavement, in the middle of all those burning cars...

"He did this," Sonic said with an edge of anger.

"Who?" Tails asked.

"Robotnik."

Sonic let out a growl of rage, and gave the side of the sedan he was next to a good kick.

"I'm gonna kill that asshole!" Sonic screamed.

He then realized he had let his bad leg bear all of the weight as he had used his good leg to kick the car. A sharp spike of pain shot through his body, and he fell to the ground with a hard thump.

"Sonic! You okay?" Tails said, kneeling next to him.

"Yeah...just pissed off," he said as he leaned up with his arms. He looked down at his bandaged leg. "Stupid leg..."

He looked back at the corpse of that cat.

Nobody deserves to die like that. The only thing she ever did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time. War is so cruel.

"What do we do?" Tails asked.

Good question Tails, Sonic thought. What do we do now?

"Hey! I know!" Tails said, getting an excited grin on his face.

"What?"

"That car over there with the lights!" Tails said, as he pointed back to the first car they had seen. "Maybe it's still working. I can drive it while you rest."

"But Tails...you don't even have a license. You're not even old enough by half."

Tails sighed and shook his head, like he thought Sonic was a moron.

"So? I can fly a plane, can't I? I think I can handle a car. Besides, I don't think there's any cops left to arrest us anyway."

Sonic blinked, and smiled a bit.

"Sorry, I forgot. Okay then, it's a plan. Help me over there."

Tails shouldered Sonic, and helped him back over to the car. After helping Sonic to lie down in the back seat, Tails jumped into the driver's seat. If the fox had been like any other kid, he would have probably been intimidated by the controls. However, since he was just as interested in machines as his mother, she had often shown him how their family car worked. While the setup looked different from the family car, he recognized most of the important stuff easily. The dashboard gauges, the steering wheel, the gear shifter, the headlight controls, the accelerator, the brakes, all of it.

His eyes then darted to the steering wheel column. In a stroke of pure luck, the keys were still in the ignition. Tails then glanced at the gauges on the dashboard. The car still had three quarters of a tank of gas left too. However, that still didn't mean they were home free just yet. Who knew how long those emergency lights had been blinking? It would be a big drain on the battery. His mother told him about it all the time, every time she accidentally left her lights on. He quickly switched off the blinkers to keep from losing any more power.

Tails looked back at the key once more, tension rising. He slowly reached over to the key, and grasped it firmly. It was the moment of truth.

Here goes...

He turned the key. The engine coughed and sputtered in response, but it didn't fully ignite. Tails let go of the key. Not ready to admit defeat yet, the fox turned the key again. The engine sputtered some more. Still, the engine didn't fully come to life. Tails let out a sigh, and then he twisted the key once more.

Please work...please...

The engine sputtered again...and then let out a satisfying roar. Tails let out a sigh of relief.

"That's the best sound I've heard all day..." he heard Sonic say.

Tails looked back at him and nodded. It seemed that for the first time in a good while, things were looking up for them.

However, he did realize something. They had a car now...but they still didn't have any idea on where they were going to go. On that thought, Tails' eyes once again swept across the inside of the car, as he struggled to come up with a plan. His eyes rested on a folded up piece of paper in the passenger seat next to him. He picked it up and looked at it. The paper had "Zeraw Interstate Highway Map" written on it. Tails almost cried with joy as he finally realized what he was holding.

He quickly unfolded it, trying to pinpoint their location. That was quite difficult though, as he once again remembered that all the roads they had walked down had looked the same. Tails had stopped looking at the road signs a long time ago too. Most of them didn't display anything more than "East 45" or "North 125". Without knowledge of the roadways, the signs were meaningless to him...

Tails suddenly grinned and gave himself a mental slap on the head.

I've got a map here! Now I can figure out how all these numbered roads link up! First though, I need to find out what road this is...

He took his gaze away from the map and looked down the road. He saw a small signpost up ahead. He squinted to make out the writing on the sign, and saw that it said "West 37". The fox quickly looked back at the map, and soon spotted the road on the map. He traced the route of the road with his finger, seeing where they would end up if they stayed on this route. What he saw gave him immense joy. About twenty miles up ahead was the city of Carlboron, a place that might have a running hospital, and possibly food as well. Sure, they had no money to pay for it...but getting the money could wait till later. The important thing right now was survival.

Satisfied with the plan, Tails slipped the car into drive, and gently pressed down on the accelerator. With a lurch, the car moved onto the road and was soon on its way, speeding down the road.

"Everything is going to be just fine," Tails said.